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In "Agreeing With Stalin in Ways That Exhibit Generally Rationalist Principles" (Less Wrong mirrorpost), the fourth installment of my memoir telling the Whole Dumb Story of how I wasted the last eight years of my life trying to convince the so-called "rationalist" community that you can't redefine concepts in order to make people happy, I explain how Eliezer Yudkowsky has not been consistently candid in his communications with his followers, hindering their ability to exercise their responsibilities.
Previously: pt. 1 (Less Wrong mirrorpost), pt. 2 (Less Wrong mirrorpost, The Motte discussion), pt. 3 (Less Wrong mirrorpost)
Well I don't know if you know this already, but in dath ilan it's implied that "someone wanting to live as if they were a woman and society treats them thusly because that's kinder or more libertarian" and "being a woman" are not the same thing. And it's implied that there are no ftm people (or very few) in that alternate timeline, only mtf. I don't remember where in the dath ilan writings it says those things, and my memory may be unreliable, but there you go. Progressive but subtly Kolmogorov or whatever. But from what I gather subtle things like that are not enough to satisfy you, which I sympathize with. In this week's roundup in response to another comment @Goodguy says that infant circumcision is probably a worse problem in our society than any concerns on this issue, but that people can care about both. And that's how I feel as well.
... why? I'd argue: Transitioning makes you infertile, preventing you from having kids, which from a utilitarian standpoint is bad because fewer people, and from an anti-egalitarian standpoint is bad because if you're one of the rationalists you probably had good genes. Also you waste a solid 10% of your waking life chasing meaningless appearances of being a woman. Whereas circumcision just makes sex feel a bit less good, maybe, and maybe causes some minor health issues. I still don't think anyone should get circumcised, but I think even when you multiply by the number of people affected trans is worse. (Yes this depends on contestable philosophical arguments that have significantly more important implications than 'is trans bad')
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